


If I Falter, Will You Reel Me In?

by thejessbeast



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Frontier, Frottage, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2013-12-11
Packaged: 2018-01-04 07:41:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1078333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thejessbeast/pseuds/thejessbeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the edge of the wilderness, Stiles, his father, and Derek are just trying to survive. But maybe for one moment, Stiles and Derek will get to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If I Falter, Will You Reel Me In?

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by [this song](http://youtu.be/G2-ZwvyBIbc) and is really the reason the whole thing came together in the first place. I tried to avoid as much of the manifest destiny shtick as possible. 
> 
> All the thanks to [pyes](../users/pyes/pseuds/pyes) for being my delightful beta.
> 
>  **Trigger Warning** : Blood (non-kink)

The sky is overcast and the smell of rain lingers in the air, but the drops refuse to fall. There comes a rumble of thunder from across the mountains and into the valley where the little cabin and barn sit, at the edge of the wilderness. At the edge of the world. 

The humidity glues Stiles’s shirt to his skin as he raises the axe again and splits the oak long into two. The two sides scatter. He knocks the axe into the stump, picking up the pieces and tossing them onto the wheelbarrow. He reaches for another log, praying for wind, a breeze, a gust - anything. This week of October has stretched like a hot iron and shows no signs of cooling.

But it will and winter will drop like a hawk on a rabbit. It will be the second winter they spend in the homestead, he and his father. Carving an existence two thousand miles from everyone they’ve ever known makes Stiles’s hands shake every morning. Just as they shake now, as he glances over his shoulder where his father and Derek labor in the field.

His father guides the mule and Derek forces the plow. They need to get this field tilled before the snows start, even though no one tills at this time of the year. Last spring the ground didn’t give. The crop was stringy and pale. They’d planted everything too late and harvested as late into the season as they could. Stiles will be making watery corn soup and cabbage throughout the winter.

The plow halts, jerking Derek’s body forward. The mule haws. The ground is rocky - nearly useless to grow anything. Stiles’s father and Derek move to the blade of the plow, reaching hands into soil, searching for the rock 

Stiles pries the axe from the stump and but not his eyes away from Derek. 

They’d met Derek on the trail, Stiles and his father. Derek raved with fever at one of the forts, stumbling into their path and fell before their oxen. It had taken half a heartbeat for Stiles to leap down and pull Derek into his lap. It took two days for his fever to break. And in the end Derek had nothing: his wagon was completely abandoned and picked over. So all he had left was a mule - who had stood guard over him - and the clothes on his back. The same mule who now waits patiently while Derek wrestles the rock from the soil. 

The muscles in Derek’s arms tense and flex as he manages to pry the stone loose. He lifts his arm to wipe the sweat from his brow. Something in Stiles’s stomach contracts. He looks down at the log ready to halve. There’s so much left to do and not enough daylight - there’s never enough daylight - there’s never enough food, or sleep, or warmth. His shoulders burn again has he raises the axe and brings it down with sharp accuracy.

He knocks the axe into the stump and collects the scattered halves again. Today’s work is almost done. There are no more fledgling oaks felled - that is it, until tomorrow when he and Derek set out to chop down more trees. If there’s anything learned from last winter, it’s that it will never be warm enough at the edge of the world. 

Laughter crackles from the field and Stiles turns his head sharply. Derek’s smile is so soft; his shoulders shake. His father laughs too, hands on his hips. His father whose glance falls back on Stiles. Falls back to the work that no one is doing any more.

Stiles’s head spins, the world turning to a dark green and gray blur. The heat flares across his cheeks, spreading down his neck. Stiles sweeps his gaze down to Derek’s hands, clutching at the hem of his shirt. 

Stiles reaches for the axe and there’s a swift, slick heat at his palm and then his heartbeat is echoing in his fingertips. The blood flows steadily from Stiles’s right palm. The ax had shifted, exposing a point of the blade, slicing a split through his heartline. 

Stiles sucks his breath between his teeth. The cut’s shallow enough - no stitches - but when he flexes his fingers a new spark of pain pops from his fingers to his elbow. Stiles pulls his thin linen shirt over his head and wraps it around his hand.

He’s almost done with the wood. Almost.

Until tomorrow. Until they run out of wood and the cold seeps into their bones. Until the soup is just water and stones. Until there’s nothing more they can hack from the land.

Lightning cracks overhead by the time Stiles is finished chopping wood. The wheelbarrow pulls at his arms, strains at the cut on his hand, and steals the breath from his chest. The jingling of the mule’s harness rings behind him.

Stiles and Derek reach the barn at the same time. Stiles drops the handles of the wheelbarrow and Derek leads the mule and plow in first. Stiles gazes at Derek’s back as he goes, sliding his eyes down to where Derek’s pants hug at his backside. 

Whether the vibrations in Stiles’s chest are his heart or the bass of thunder are indeterminable. 

Stiles stacks the wood into the pile so it can air out. The sound of Derek patting down the mule fills the barn. She’s all Derek has left of wherever he came from - he never really talks about it. Though the gut-shot of “cholera” was what Derek recovered from; the way Derek talks in his sleep sometimes, like he’s nursing someone murmuring names, makes Stiles know he wasn’t the only one who had it.

Sometimes Stiles remembers Derek’s burning skin under his hands, his damp hair, his fever shakes. Stiles held Derek’s head in his lap, feeding him broth and water a spoonful at a time. Sometimes he can remember when Derek opened his eyes after the fever broke. They were soft one moment - nearly peaceful - and then hardened like ice.

There’s always something you give up to keep on going.

The sky blasts open, the wind arrives in a cold gust, and the rain on the air finally falls. But it’s not rain, instead hail the size of pennies bounce off of the wooden singles. Stiles stands in the door of the barn, the house is fifty feet away, almost invisible through the hail. 

“What did you do to your hand?” Derek asks coming to stand beside him.

Stiles’s muscles stiffen and he can feel his ears blush. He glares at where the hail gathers in the trail to the house, “Nothing.”

Derek doesn’t listen though - Derek never listens - he just takes Stiles’s hand and pulls off the poorly twisted bandage. It long ago stopped bleeding. It doesn’t even hurt. Derek leans over Stiles’s hand, twisting his wrist to and fro to get the cut into the little light left.

“How did you manage to cut your hand on the axe” Derek quips; but his fingers gently probe the scab on Stiles’s palm. “Out of everything here, the trees are the least dangerous.”

Derek’s face is right there, his hair hanging over his forehead. Stiles’s breath ruffles the short hairs sticking up in the back and his fingers ache to run through it. With Derek’s hands on his, it almost feels like something - something other than staring at him over fields and across rooms - something other than purposeful distance between their bodies and awkward chatter about crops.

Derek leans forward a little bit more and presses his lips to the center of Stiles’s palm. His breath tickles and sparks over Stiles’s skin. Derek pulls his head back. Stiles stares into a set of pale, strange eyes that seem angry even now. 

The air is cold between them and only getting colder. Derek’s hands are so warm, pressing into Stiles’s palm, tight and insistent. It would be so easy to melt.

His hand is steady as Stiles reaches for Derek’s face. Stiles’s thumb traces over a cheekbone. 

With a single step forward Derek invades Stiles’s space. Stiles still has his hand on Derek’s face. Derek trails one hand up Stiles’s neck and buries his fingers into Stiles’s hair. Goosebumps irrupt in the trail Derek leaves behind. 

With something that burns like panic in his stomach, Stiles kisses him.

It’s still at first - hesitant to even breathe - but Derek’s fingers tighten in Stiles’s hair and the panic melts into thrill.

It’s not gentle - nothing’s ever gentle at the edge of the world. This kiss is a fight, is hands pulling through hair, is a clash of lips and teeth, is fingernails digging into shoulders, is legs sliding against one another. This kiss pounds like the hail on the roof.

Stiles wrenches Derek’s shirt under his hands, desperately clawing for skin. Derek whines when Stiles steps back, but it’s just to tug Derek’s shirt over his head. As soon as it’s off, Stiles presses himself close again, kissing every piece of Derek he can find: jaw, neck, collar-bone, chest. He needs to take in all of Derek before it’s gone.

Derek drags Stiles back to his mouth. Derek’s lips press heat Stiles all over, a hearth fire that never wanes. Each touch just fills him more; the cold seeping from his skin, replaced by the the heat of Derek’s mouth. Where Derek’s lips will go next is all Stiles could ever care about.

Derek’s arms wrap around him, dragging fingernails down his sides. Stiles is being pressed back, back, back against the stack of wood, odd angles and corners digging into him. Derek’s hands are shaking now, resting at the line of his pants. Everything is shaking.

Stiles pulls his head back from Derek, looking into his eyes again. They are pale gray in the half light of the bar, flicking over his face. He stayed - on the trail, at the farm, in the barn. He is here now. They are here now.

Stiles rolls his hips against Derek’s and Derek’s eyes close. 

Stiles rocks again, breath hissing between his teeth, sparks rolling up his spine, making his hair stand on end. Derek tilts his head back and moans. So Stiles does it again. And again. And again, until Derek’s lips come crashing back against his own and all they can do is move against one another, legs pressed tight between each other.

When Stiles’s knees go weak, give away, and he falls into Derek, they sink to the ground together. The stones press into Stiles back as Derek’s weight settles over him. Derek rolls his hips hard, pressing his scorching mouth to Stiles’s throat. Stiles can no longer tell who’s voice is the the one saying “yes” over and over again. He can only feel the fire boiling in his belly. 

And just when he can’t stand the heat any longer, Derek leans forward and with a breathless voice says, “Stiles.”

Stiles bites at Derek’s shoulder as he comes apart, rocking against Derek, feeling Derek shudder beneath his hands. And even with the insistent urge abated, Stiles can’t stop himself from running his fingers across Derek, pressing his mouth to whatever parts of Derek he can reach. Derek just breaths, faced pressed into Stiles’s chest.

The sound of hail comes back to Stiles suddenly, just as loud as ever. It echos through the quiet between them. 

There are words pulling at Stiles’s lips. Things he could say - maybe even should say - but instead he rakes his fingers through Derek’s hair harder, twisting Derek’s mouth to his own, and listens to winter descend on the farm.


End file.
